Well, though I applaud DVD, Anchor Bay, and Something Weird., I want my 24 hour B-Movie Channel. I suppose the only way to make it happen then is for a socialist state or something, but perhaps we could make an exception for movies in a free enterprise system. Chad do you think capitalism helps the creative process?

Chadzilla said

"As a struggling writer I have no quibble with the copyright laws for literary creations (they are held for about one hundred years until reverting to the public domain then anyone can publish them in anyway, or any format (abridged, condensed, or unabridged), of choice, or hacks can make as many crappy b-movies 'based' on them as their coffers allows). Movie copyrights are usually held by the production company for legal purposes. This is due mainly to the point that, if a movie is personal property, then personal assets (cars, house, clothes, etc.) can be taken by the court if litagation arrises for whatever reason. Also so many individuals are invovled in the production of a movie that appointing one person as soul owner of the copyright is impossible. Sadly this alows the copyright holders to re-edit and alter a movie without any input from the original creative team.

As far as complete and unfettered access to the product? I think it should only be after an extended period where those involved have earned their deserved royalties for their hard work. Sadly many companies (both Hollywood and 'Independent') cook the books to keep as much money for themselves as possible. Case in point: No one who worked on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre made a dime from that movie until New Line Cinema got the rights in the early eighties (it had sunk to becoming nearly public domain by that time). The largest check that Tobe Hooper ever received from the distributor wouldn't even buy him a McDonald's value meal these days, despite the movie makings millions and millions for Byranston (the distributor of TCM as well as The Devil's Rain and Deep Throat). The Latent Image suffered a similiar fate in regards to the original Night of the Living Dead.

As far as it all being free, well all the movies reviewed here, and elsewhere, cost money to make and where made to make money back. I think that the for the longest time these movies were made and dumped and forgotten, mostly owing to the fact that there were no ways for the viewing public to keep them like books (thank God for video and digital technology) but now fans and filmmakers that grew up fans (i.e. Martin Scorsese, etc.) are making firm steps to save these movies from disappearing. The downside to that is that it costs money (some times a great deal of it) to do so, which means that investors will be expecting to earn back the expenditures that restoring these movies cost. So the 'saved and restored' movies once again will fall into copyright and distribution deals to earn the maximum amount of money they can make (a double edge sword for 1 - most money will undoubtedly go to lining several fat cats pockets and 2 - happily other films will be saved and restored and redistributed). As far as the government stepping in and helping, well okay, but they sure as hell are not going to be saving b-movies. Those pandering to the masses pulp fictions are a dime a dozen (used to be in the thirties at least) and are not the type of dignified contributions to the arts that we want our valuable tax dollars spent on saving, only movies of a certain artistic standing will get the funding (so long H.G. Lewis, Romero, Corman, etc it's been real unfun knowing you) and even then it can be yanked at a moment's notice (Republicans love taking away funding for offsenive art and public television).

I firmly believe that a non-profit, fan based organization is the only chance any other these buried treasures stand at staying alive beyond our short lifespans. So God bless Something Weird and Anchor Bay, it is these companies that are leading the way. But the restored reissues they release are newly copyrighted as well and not free to everyone, but considering the cost and effort they put into it I think it is a very small price to pay.

Yeah, because the consumer decides what is produced (albeit the mass market system will always cater to the lowest common denominator to try to get the largest profits, but smaller companies will always come out of nowhere and find that special little crevice where movies with vision and personality will be created and, in some cases, thrive). In a "socialist" or government backed movie production system then you would have the government deciding which films will or will not get funded or distributed (a painful idea for me, would you really want Dubya and his conservative puppet string pullers deciding what movies will be getting made and distributed for the next four years?), so I feel the choices for viewing would be even less than it is now. It certainly is a double edged sword, but, for better or worse, the system we have works fine because it encourages the independent movie production and distribution more so than something government finaced would. Of course the french governent supposedly does it (which why they produce so many critically acclaimed art house movies and seemingly little else), but then the genre stuff they release is strictly limited to what the pornographers (Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, etc) can scrape together and make because they are passionate about it (I think this also explains why they praised Jerry Lewis, H.G. Lewis, and Clint Eastwood long before they were embraced in their native country by their own critics). I think passion always adds more to the mix than anything money can buy, but I will always stand by the free market system, because, hardships aside, there are more choices and options.

Besides you do have a b-movie channel Scott. It's your VCR! :-) You pay for the right to view what you want when you want, so, in a way, you're running your own little TV station. Sometimes I even pull a little AMC on the wife an introduce the movie we are about to watch with little tidbits of info, of course I usually get a response of "That's nice dear, now let's watch the movie." But what the heck, it certainly is better than when we didn't have the option of those movies in a box (which I still remember clearly).

Many good points,Chad-san. May your VCR never break,and your cable system not be infected with QVC. Just remember, If Gore had won, the politicos would just have you over a different barrel. The best we can hope for is the lesser of the available evils. And i voted for Bush! The small companys are the crack fillers. VideoDaiKaiju a good example. Same with Independant producers. I would love to get the Toho Series ,undubbed, by Toho them selves...but, where are they ? Well, lets keep hopeing.

Yes where are they? Much was made of the original Japanese language version of Godzilla 2000 being on the DVD release, but low and behold it was not there. ???

Reason? Well sources (i.e. dude that over saw the G2K release for Tri-Star) says that Toho has only sold distribution rights for a DUBBED print release to Tri-Star. They held onto the original language rights and refused Tri-Star's offer to release it, which is why the copyright sharks from major companies cannot sue the pants of people selling 'bootlegs' of the original language prints. They have no legal grounds to do so.